Perfect You
by literately lucious
Summary: Sakura Haruno's life has gone downhill fast. No bestfriend, and her wacky Dad starts selling Perfect You vitamins at the mall. Can gorgeous, unattainable Sasuke help her put her life back together, or will she push him away? SasuSaku.
1. One

**Perfect You**

_Sakura Haruno's life has gone downhill fast. Her father has quit his job to sell vitamins at the mall, and Sakura is forced to work with him. Her best friend has become popular, and now she acts like Sakura is invisible. _

_And then there's Sasuke._

_Gorgeous, unattainable Sasuke, whom Sakura acts like she can't stand even though she can't stop thinking about him. When Sasuke starts acting interested, Sakura hates herself for wanting him when she's just his latest conquest._

_Sakura figures that the only way things will ever stop hurting so much is if she keeps to herself and stops caring about anyone or anything. What she doesn't realize is that while life may not be perfect, good things can happen--but only if she lets them…_

--

**Vitamins had ruined my life.**

Not that there was much left to ruin, but still.

I know blaming vitamins for my horrible life sounds strange. After all, vitamins are supposed to keep people healthy. Also, they're inanimate objects. But thanks to them I was stuck in the Hidden Leaf Center Mall watching my father run around in a bee costume.

I sank into my chair by our cash register, as my father walked up to two women, trying to reel them into another bargain. They smiled politely and side-stepped away, an almost dance I'd seen plenty over the few days I worked at the hip-hip-hooray vitamin counter. Hoo-ha! …not.

"Sakura, I think I made a sale! Those two kind ladies told me they'd be sure to tell their husbands about the new vitamin tablets! Oh, hey, I think I'll go down to the department store and hand out a few samples to people as they walk out."

He grinned that childish smile of his, and I winced as I handed over the plastic bag of samples. The bag was stamped with the bright purple Perfect You logo. My dad skipped away, and as soon as he turned the corner I dished out my homework.

This was not how I pictured my Junior year. Not that the first half had been wonderful so far, but this was definitely an all-time low.

Four hours and at least five pounds of homework later, the mall began to close. Dad and I boxed up the extra vitamins Dad had had so much faith in selling, and I waited while he carried it to the storage closet.

That wonderful, wonderful storage closet. But that comes later.

"I thought today went pretty well." My father smirked when he came back, his read hair dulled underneath the lights of the mall. "Naruto and I sold one bottle in the morning, and I'm sure those two ladies will come back. Won't they?"

I shrugged, because it was much easier than telling Dad I was sure they wouldn't.

When we got home, my mother was flipping through her checkbook and frowning. She'd been doing that a lot lately.

"How did it go?" She asked, her voice tight.

I left before she could say anything else, heading back to my room. I took a second to stop in the living room and stand in front of the television. My brother, Naruto, lifted himself up off the sofa long enough to say, "Sakura, you freak, move. I'm watching something important."

Last week Naruto decided he wanted to become an actor. So far, all it meant was watching television more than usual. For a college graduate, he sure was on the fast track nowhere.

"You can't learn to act watching wrestling."

"You can't. I can. Scoot!"

I started singing and then he lunged at me.

I have a terrible singing voice, and not in the "I'm saying it's terrible to be modest" kind of way. Last week, when I quit the school choir, the director tried to keep the joy off his face. He couldn't quite control himself.

I didn't really care. I knew my voice sucked, and quitting choir was such a big lift off my shoulders. The only reason I stayed as long as I had was because of Ino. All fall I suffered practices and singing folk songs, hoping she'd come back.

That she'd want to be in choir again. That she'd want to be my friend again.

That maybe at least she'd talk to me.

In the fall, I thought there was no way life could get any worse.

I was wrong. So very, very wrong.

Almost a month ago, my father got up and went to work, running late again because he had been playing his newest video game, slaying dragons or driving cars or whatever obsessed him last week.

But when he got to work, he found his desk was broken. It was cracked, and split right down the middle. Everything was ruined, except for a small jar of vitamins. Perfect You vitamins.

Dad saw this as some sort of "sign" in his life and he quit his job at this big software company to sell Perfect You vitamins.

Yes, really.

He cashed in his retirement fund, buying truckloads of Perfect You vitamins, and then rented a freestanding booth in the mall. That's when I had to quit choir and start working in the mall.

So now I had no best friend, and a job selling vitamins at the mall with my father.

Life had definitely gotten much worse. But of course it was only the beginning.


	2. Two

**Disclaimer: I do not own the orginial novel Perfect You. Plot has been tweaked, and is not used for profit. I do not own all dialogue/events.**

**I do not own characters or Naruto. **

* * *

**t w o :**

**I saw Ino as soon as I got to school the next morning.**

When my dad dropped me off, she was standing on the sidewalk holding hands with her boyfriend, Neji. I hated how easy it was for her to act like she had never known me. I wish it was that easy for me.

I hated how I still hoped she'd notice me.

No one ever asked me why Ino and I weren't friends anymore. I guess everyone automatically understood that when Ino became popular, there was no way she'd have room in her life for me. Even this one clique of girls I'd tried to be friends with in the fall never asked me what happened. Actually, one person had asked about Ino. Sasuke Uchiha said,

"So what's up with you and Ino?" about a week after school started, but I knew he was just being a butt.

Sasuke was like that. One of the guys who was cute and he knew it.

He'd hooked up with at least half the girls in the school, and last year, I swear that he made out with a different girl before each class. I hadn't liked him since the day I met him.

I tried to avoid him, in face, but he was in my first period class. It was bad enough I had to start every morning with Biology, and Sasuke just made it worse.

For instance, we ended up walking into the hall at the same time and he said, "Hey, what did your frog ever do to you? I saw you hack its legs off."

I sighed. Sasuke always seemed to take some sort of perverse delight in picking on me, but lately he'd been even more annoying about it than usual.

"I didn't hack its legs off. My scalpel slipped."

"Wow, promise me you aren't going into medicine."

_How ironic._

I glared at him and he grinned, unleashing the pearly whites. I turned and saw Ino walking down the hall with a group of girls, and one of them said to Sasuke, "Any chance we can get you to go shirtless at the next pep rally?"

He shrugged, still grinning, and Ino said, "Think about it, will you?" Her gaze moved over me like I wasn't even there.

I walked away, telling myself I shouldn't care.

Of course, Sasuke caught up.

"What do you think? Should I do it? I know you've been dying to check me out."

"Right, because if I see your scrawny chest I'll die a happy woman." Sasuke actually had a very nice chest. The thing was that he knew that, too, and was willing to run around wearing KHS RULES! across his bare chest.

"I like that a glimpse of my chest could provide you with the equivalent of a rich and full life."

"The key words in my sentence were 'see your chest' and 'die.' The 'happy' part was just me trying to be nice."

"So you say." He flashed his smile again, grinning like he knew something, and I felt my face heat up because Sasuke really was cute and I wasn't as immune to him as I wanted to be.

"All right, you caught me. I'm secretly obsessed with you and spend all my free time writing about you in my journal. 'Dear Diary, today Sasuke was a jerk for 567th day in a row. He's so dreamy.'"

He laughed, and then leaned in toward me. He jerked his head to the side, whip-flash style, those ebony spikes shimmering. For some reason, I felt a little breathless. "It's the hair, isn't it?" He smirked.

Okay, here's the truth. I knew exactly why I felt breathless. I had certain… 'thoughts' about Sasuke. And not the kind of thoughts I wanted to have, but more like Sasuke and I being alone in a classroom and he realized he really wanted me, and I… well, let's just said I had a pretty vivid imagination.

"I'm sorry about everything with Ino."

I didn't care about whatever else he had to say. I moved down the hall as quickly as I could, not looking back at him.

I hated that he was the only person who'd acted like her forgetting me meant something.


	3. Three

**Disclaimer: I do not own original novel, or all dialogue/events. They have been twisted to prevent copyright lawsuits, and such. I do not own original anime Naruto. **

**t h r e e :**

**The next day, Naruto took me to school in the morning because Dad had been working on a Perfect You project.**

"Project?" I snorted. "What kind of project? Does it involve anything virtual of any kind?"

Naruto rolled his eyes, his fingers drumming on the steering wheel.

"I don't know, Sakura," Naruto said, frowning, "It's inhuman to be up this early."

"I only have to do it five times a week."

"Look, I didn't sign up to be your stupid chauffer, okay? You're in high school, I'm not. It's bad enough I have to get up before the afternoon just so I can be at the mall." He ran his fingers through his hair.

"Maybe if you didn't stay up talking on the phone all night you'd be more rested."

"Shut up. You want to walk to school?" He snapped, and I bit my lip to fight a smile.

"Please. Mom would totally roast you."

We both knew I had won this little argument, but like he could care as much as I was dancing about it in my head. He didn't give a damn, because as soon as we stopped at a red light he noticed a girl in the car next to us watching him. He grinned, and I slumped in the passenger seat of his red convertible.

Besides having the same hair color, a reddish blond, We looked nothing alike. Naruto had grown out of his awkward, ugly stages and blossomed into a Calvin Klein model. It just wasn't fair.

The girl slipped over a piece of paper, and asked Naruto if he wanted to get coffee later.

"I don't have a lot of time later today. But how about now, before work?"

"Work?" I snorted. Laying around the couch all day could hardly be considered any type of labor.

Naruto drove to my school fast as lightning, and I groaned.

"Great, now I'm here early." I scowled at him, my chest rumbling as I growled.

"Go play with your friends." He unlocked the doors, and I stared at him blankly. He swallowed.

"Oh. Right."

I crossed my arms, and he sighed. I opened my door, stepped onto the pavement, and slammed that polished door as hard as I could manage.

"You suck!" I screamed at him as he drove away, his head back as he laughed.

I took my time moving across campus, and I noticed Ino standing with Neji. I didn't know why she liked him, with that long hair. I personally didn't find them cute together at all, but dating Neji was a huge deal. He was like a celebrity. You only had to have a certain level of popularity to snag a guy like him. I bet she felt damn well accomplished.

I shook my head as the bell rang, making my way to biology. Hinata was biting her nails as I walked in, and when she saw me her eye's widened and she attacked me as I sat down.

"I'm so dead, Sakura!" She moaned.

"What's the deal-o?" I bit my lip, and Temari and TenTen just laughed together, huddling over each others' phones.

"The PSATs. I'm taking them again, and what if I do worse than last time? What if I end up like that one girl who—"

"Stop freaking out, Hinata." TenTen rolled her eyes as she turned in her chair to look at Hinata. TenTen, Hinata, and Temari all hung out like if they didn't breathe the same air, they would all collapse and die. They were obsessed with each other… and Sasuke.

"You'll do fine." I assured her, and this made Temari look nervous. Which was unusual.

I flopped my backpack onto my desk, stretching my arms out and laying my head down on all my notebooks. I started to drift off to sleep.

"What about you, Sasuke?" TenTen asked, her voice suddenly light and bubbly. I raised my head, no longer an inch tired.

"Are you kidding me? Of course he did really well." Hinata rolled her eyes, upset because TenTen was showing more interest in Sasuke than she was in Hinata.

"Yeah, but I was just trying to keep up with certain people." He grinned, and his eyes linked dead on with mine.

"Sakura, I thought you said you did just okay." Temari cocked her head, her silky blonde hair laying across her shoulder perfectly.

"I did," I said through clenched teeth, "Sasuke's trying to be funny. Laugh so he'll shut up."

The three girls just blinked, raising an eyebrow at me and then started into deep conversation about Neji's eyes.

Sasuke looked at them for a second and then turned toward me. He sat one desk across from me, next to Hinata. So he was at my right, leaning like a perfect statue against his desk.

"Sakura, don't be like that. You know I only did so well because I yearn-see, SAT word-to follow you to college and steal your heat."

"Uh-huh. Too bad for you I don't plan on attending Idiot College."

He smiled. "Only you would ignore the incredibly sweet thing I just said."

"Only you would describe one of your asinine comments as incredibly sweet."

"Asinine? Now there's an SAT word. In fact—"

"Mr. Uchiha, do you mind?" Our teacher, Asuma, asked as he came in, reeking of cigarettes as always.

"Nope." He grinned sheepishly, and Asuma moved down the classroom to his desk.

"Don't worry," I hissed as Sasuke turned back around, "Asinine should be pretty easy to find because your picture will be right next to the definition."

I looked away from him, confident I had won this conversation. I know it seems like a weird thing to be so happy over something like this, but it hadn't been happening in our last three conversations.

When I went to lunch, I saw Ino. She was sitting with this girl who had moved in from some country way out south. She was French, and she was beautiful. Her name was Geneviève, but she got pissed when someone didn't say her name right, so everyone called her Genny.

Genny is a Senior, and she's only been a year. Genny is already so popular that she could do anything. If her jeans had a rip in the butt-line, all she had to do was strut down the halls and all the girls would start freaking out and kill for scissors. Just so they could have jeans like Genny. If an actual world leader had that much power, we'd all be living under one big dictatorship. She skipped class and got away with it, but only because I swear I heard that she gives the staff free lap dances. Slutburger.

I watched Ino laugh, grinning like she was embarrassed. Genny's teeth gleamed, her wavy black hair like silk. Her hair looked like the kind models had on those Garnier shampoo commercials. Except, her hair looked like that ALL the time. Laser-whitened teeth against her tan skin, gleaming…. She was disgusting.

The bell rang and I watched Genny and Ino get up. Sasuke walked past them, and Genny grabbed his arm. I chugged down my lukewarm soup that was all-too salty, and glided out of the cafeteria.

Ino had treated me like crap and I knew it. Maybe it was because she was the only one who wasn't afraid to tell me the truth. But we were best friends, or used to be, and I missed that.


End file.
